You just got an email from your customer's procurement team. They need you to fill out a sustainability questionnaire. The email mentions "VSME" or "CSRD" or "supply chain ESG data." There's a deadline. There's a spreadsheet attached. And you're not sure where to start.
Don't panic. This is happening to suppliers across Europe right now, and the reason is straightforward. Here's what's going on and what you need to do.
Why This Is Happening Now
Your customer is almost certainly subject to the EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). This legislation requires large companies to publish detailed sustainability reports covering their entire value chain — including their suppliers.
CSRD started phasing in from 2024. By 2026, most large and mid-sized EU companies are required to report. And here's the part that affects you: they can't complete their reports without data from companies like yours.
Specifically, CSRD requires them to report on:
- Scope 3 emissions — The carbon footprint of their supply chain. Your energy use and emissions are part of their numbers.
- Supply chain labor practices — How their suppliers treat workers. Your workforce data, safety record, and employment practices are relevant.
- Supplier governance — Whether their supply chain partners operate ethically. Your policies on anti-corruption, data protection, and compliance matter.
- Environmental impact — Water use, waste, pollution across their value chain. Your operational data contributes.
Your customer isn't sending you this questionnaire because they're bored. They're legally required to collect this data, and they need your help.
What "VSME" Means
VSME stands for Voluntary Sustainability Reporting Standard for SMEs. It was developed by EFRAG (the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group) and officially adopted by the European Commission in July 2025.
The VSME exists because asking a 50-person supplier to produce the same 200-page report as a multinational corporation is unreasonable. Instead, the VSME defines a simplified set of disclosures that SMEs can report — giving large companies the data they need without drowning smaller suppliers in paperwork.
The key word is "voluntary." Nobody will fine you for not completing a VSME report. But when your customer's questionnaire is VSME-aligned, "voluntary" is a bit misleading. You can choose not to respond — but that choice has commercial consequences.
For more on the VSME vs CSRD distinction, see our detailed comparison.
What They're Actually Asking For
Most VSME-aligned supplier questionnaires cover the 11 Basic Module disclosures. In plain language, here's what your customer wants to know:
About your company (B1)
- What do you do? Where do you operate? How many employees?
- This is basic company information you already know.
About your governance (B2)
- Do you have a code of conduct?
- Do you have policies for anti-corruption, data protection, environmental management?
- Who oversees sustainability in your company?
- If you have policies, list them. If you don't, say so.
About what matters (B3)
- Which sustainability topics are most relevant to your business?
- A brief, honest answer is sufficient. "Our main impacts are energy use in manufacturing and workforce safety" is a perfectly valid response.
About your energy and emissions (B4)
- Total electricity consumption (kWh per year)
- Total gas consumption (kWh per year)
- Vehicle fuel consumption (liters per year)
- Scope 1 emissions (from gas and fuel you burn)
- Scope 2 emissions (from the electricity you buy)
- Renewable energy share
This is usually the most data-intensive section. The numbers come from your utility bills and fuel receipts.
About pollution (B5)
- Do you generate significant air, water, or soil pollution?
- For many service and light-manufacturing companies: "Our operations do not generate significant pollution" is an honest and complete answer.
About water (B6)
- Total water consumption in cubic meters per year
- One number, from your water bill.
About biodiversity (B7)
- Do your operations affect protected areas or sensitive habitats?
- For most suppliers: a brief statement about your site locations is sufficient.
About waste (B8)
- Total waste generated (tonnes per year)
- Recycling rate
- Hazardous waste (if applicable)
- From your waste hauler invoices or reports.
About your workforce (B9)
- Total headcount (full-time equivalents)
- Gender split
- New hires and departures
- From your payroll or HR records.
About health and safety (B10)
- Work-related accidents, injuries, fatalities
- Hours worked (for calculating rates)
- From your incident records and HR data.
About training (B11)
- Total training hours
- Training hours per employee
- From your training records.
That's it. Eleven disclosures. Most of the data comes from records you already have — utility bills, payroll, waste invoices, and HR files.
How to Respond: The Practical Steps
If you have 2+ weeks before the deadline
Week 1: Collect your data
- Pull your utility bills for the last 12 months (electricity, gas, water)
- Get fuel receipts or fleet records for the same period
- Request a waste summary from your waste management company
- Pull headcount data from payroll (total FTE, gender split)
- Check your HR records for workplace incidents and training hours
- List your existing policies and certifications
Week 2: Calculate and respond
- Add up your annual consumption figures
- Calculate your emissions using standard conversion factors (or use a tool)
- Fill in the questionnaire using your collected data
- For narrative questions, write brief, honest descriptions
- Review for consistency and submit
If you have less than 2 weeks
Focus on what you have. Pull whatever data is immediately available — recent utility bills, current headcount, incident records. Estimate where necessary and note your methodology. A response with some estimated figures is dramatically better than no response at all.
Many customers will accept a first response with gaps, as long as you indicate that you'll improve data quality over time.
If you've already been tracking
If you've been collecting ESG data monthly, this questionnaire should take less than an hour. Your energy, emissions, water, waste, and workforce data is already compiled. You're just mapping it to the questionnaire format.
What Happens If You Don't Respond
Let's be direct: not responding is a risk. Here's what typically happens:
Short term: Your customer follows up. Possibly multiple times. Their procurement team has their own deadline and your missing data is blocking them.
Medium term: Your customer may flag you as a non-responsive supplier. Some companies have policies to deprioritize or phase out suppliers who can't provide basic ESG data.
Long term: As CSRD matures and more companies need supply chain data, the ability to provide ESG information becomes a baseline expectation — like having insurance or meeting quality standards. Suppliers who can't or won't report will find themselves at a competitive disadvantage.
This isn't speculation. It's already happening. Procurement teams at major European companies are building ESG criteria into their supplier evaluation and tender processes.
How to Prepare for the Next One
The first questionnaire is always the hardest because you're building everything from scratch. Make it easier for next time:
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Start tracking monthly. Fifteen minutes once a month — enter your electricity, gas, water, waste, and headcount figures. When the next questionnaire arrives, you'll have 12 months of data ready.
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Save your answers. The core questions repeat across every questionnaire. Save your responses so you can adapt them instead of rewriting from scratch.
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Use the VSME as your baseline. If you organize your data around the 11 VSME disclosures, you'll be prepared for any VSME-aligned questionnaire — and most non-VSME questionnaires cover the same topics anyway.
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Use a tool that keeps your data in one place. ESG Passport lets you track all VSME-aligned data in your browser, calculate emissions automatically, and generate questionnaire responses from your data. The free tier covers data tracking; the full version (€199, one-time) adds the response generator.
For the full breakdown of each VSME disclosure, see our VSME reporting guide. To check where you stand right now, try the free VSME readiness tool — it takes 5 minutes.
Your customer sent that questionnaire because they need your data. The good news: collecting it is simpler than it looks, and once you have a system, you'll never scramble again.
Respond to the VSME questionnaire in hours.
ESG Passport tracks all 11 VSME disclosures and generates answers from your data. Free to start.